Beer can be spoiled by the growth of a range of microorganisms, most commonly by Lactobacillus spp., Pediococcus spp. and wild yeast. Brewers as part of their quality control programs routinely plate beer samples upon a culture medium so as to detect any of the beer spoilage microorganisms which may be present. A typical plating procedure employs a culture medium, such as Universal Beer Agar (UBA), that can detect a wide range of beer spoilage microorganisms. Normally, incubation takes about seven days. However, even after seven days there is not adequate growth of some of the microorganisms to allow visual detection. This is especially true of the microorganisms Pediococcus spp.
In the past, there have been various attempts to develop a better universal medium that would reduce the length of incubation, but those attempts have been uniformly unsuccessful.
It would obviously be desirable to have a culture medium which makes possible a faster and more reliable method of detecting common beer spoilage microorganisms.